A junior engineer, who works for a small engineering firm in Cocoa Beach. The firm focuses mostly on NASA projects.Neil is Jean’s best friend. When Jean was turned into a genie, Neil somehow became Jean’s master.

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Jeanie Bottle 441

Jul25

by Roberton July 25, 2017at 12:00 am and modified on July 24, 2017. at 4:07 am

Not necessarily. A does not necessarily equal A in this case. Also, Neil as Natalie has shown no interest in Rodge up until now.

Neil, until this point, I’d pegged as gynosexual – or attracted to the female form. Albeit, we have never seen Neil attracted to ANYTHING in female form. But all reactions we’ve seen from Neil thusfar have been towards female figures – mostly Jeannie. Neil has had plenty of interaction with males as Natalie, Rodge in partcular, and never had a wisp of attraction towards anyone like that. Thus something has changed. Someone did something, and it probably has to do with that “Jeannie” looming over him while he slept.

I no longer know where this story is going anymore. Why is neil Natalie? Why are there 2 Jeannie arc types? Why did the jeannie subconscious show up that night? And who is the evil Genie?!?! CD I need more!

Also serious question CD. Is what’s happening to neil, and what happened to Jean in comic 436, similar to what happened to Jean in comic 138. Where Jean tried to (somehow) impose its will on someone else. Say Niel, Arci, and on Jean/Jeannie.

Jean was originally human. Could it be possible that since he’s not acting girly and like a proper genie, that it’s effecting niel in some way?

There isn’t any reason for Neil to be Natalie right now, because, Jeanie was doing simple sleep poofing when she was recalled back to Haji palace. Unless Jeanie was looking at Neil when he was asleep and she was still thinking of agent Anderson and inadvertently poof Neil into Natalie or something like that.

Or there could be another Genie doing this too.

Neil or Natalie isn’t interested in Rodge or anything like that. But, Rodge is the only one that know that Natalie is in fact Neil and she doesn’t have to explain her existence to Rodge as to who she is.

Well, my best guess now is that this Natalie, whether or not she’s Neil, doesn’t recognize Rodge. She may not even know she’s Natalie. This is way beyond any stunt Jean would pull.

So why would another genie turn Neil into Natalie and then wipe her memory? It might have something to do with making sure Neil doesn’t try to summon Jean back from Haji’s palace. Even if the bottle is blocked from summoning, it might do something like produce a note explaining why it’s not answering its usual protocol–like the note when Neil asked to have Jean not open the bottle. But if Neil’s memory is erased, why turn him into Natalie?

Okay, suppose the memory loss and Natalie were intended to give Jean something to do while the second Jeanie poses as her so she can get close to Haji and take him out. If he’s not too macho, the second Jeanie could be the Blue Djinn in disguise. After all, Araceli, who is just a young genie, pulled off taking Jean’s place with no problem. But, problem, Jean had already been summoned.

The only part I’m kind of sure of is that Neil/Natalie doesn’t recognize Rodge. Feel free to come up with your own amazing crackpot theories.

Doesn’t this go against Genie’s messing with human will. I.E. something I discussed above, and hasn’t been talked about since chapter 138. You know… the thing that made Jean a ghost! Also I think it’s a little extreme to but jumping on the memory loss bandwagon so quickly. Sure something is up, but until we see some more… who knows.

Jeannie has just discovered that she seems to have a duplicate. Now Neil/Natalie seems to have a duplicate that doesn’t know Rodge. Perhaps the Blue Djinn is making duplicates of everyone involved with Jeannie, for his own (undoubtedly sinister) purposes? Who will be next? Rodge? Caley? Araceli? Maybe Belle?

The “making sure Neil doesn’t summon Jeanie while she’s at Haji’s Palace” thing is my own hypothesis as well. And remember, CD doesn’t tell me future plot elements, because I ask him not to. This is honest speculation.

I’m guessing that Haji, or one of his lieutenants, cast some spell from afar that forced Jeanie to do something to Neil to “keep him busy while his genie is away”.

And since I bet they assume that Neil is sleeping with Jeanie, they may have tried to be “nice” by allowing him to retain a bed partner while Jeanie is away. But since the spell used on Neil was actually cast by Jeanie, the most straightforward way she could accomplish that is through turning Neil into Natalie and messing with her hormones to make her capable of being attracted to Rodge.

I don’t think that would count against the “No manipulating free will” rule, since that’s a physiological change, rather than a psychological one.

Also, I don’t agree with you guys’ hypothesis that she’s been memory wiped of Rodge. Her reaction in the last panel gives me “Why the hell am I attracted to RODGE??!” vibes much more so than “Wow, that guy’s hot!”

That’s my interpretation. I actually asked CD what the “thump”s were, but he didn’t respond. When he fails to respond like that, I generally take that as “Answering that question would be a spoiler”. So I take it those are significant in some manner. 🙂

I doubt they would turn Neil into Natalie as a way to keep him from summoning Jeannie. I would think that would be the way to make him summon Jeannie the quickest. And I don’t think they know about Neil turning into Natalie. Genies don’t seem to be the brightest bulbs in the box. Remember that Guano thought Natalie was a genie when he first saw her…

As to my theory on why Natalie is here…

I am still as puzzled as she is!

As for those thumps… Those thumps are doki doki. I’d know that reaction anywhere!

As a real blue-sky hypothesis, when Jeanie first turned Neil into Natalie, she put too much magic into it, resulting in his natural form now being Natalie, and whenever she was changed back, it was just an alteration to make him appear to be Neil, requiring at least a trickle of her magic to maintain; with Jeanie having been whisked away into Haji’s harem, that trickle got cut off, and Neil reverted to being Natalie.

Where is the memory loss theory coming from? I see Natalie opening the door, Rodge accidentally putting his hand on her breast, and her shutting the door in embarrassment. I think she knows who he is. She just isn’t comfortable with him him fondling her.

Except, of course, he was knocking with his right hand and it appears he is touching Natalie with his left. Not sure about why he would have reached out and touched her, but that sort of explains the, “what the hell was that?” from Natalie.

Well, I’m betting Agent Anderson will be back. But first, maybe, Belle. The door Natalie opened for Rodge is the door Belle knows as the door to Jean’s apartment. Remember that Jean moved Neil’s smaller apartment into his own, although somehow it seems to occupy the same space as the another apartment, maybe Ms. Eden’s. Belle was last seen just after Jean got back from New York when she was wondering who that Natalie was with Jean (actually Rodge playing Jean). It would be entirely in character for her to pay a surprise visit now, since she “knows” Jean was recently in New York and seems to be engaged to another woman.

Maybe wishful thinking. But it would be so nice to have Belle show up and find Natalie in Jean’s apartment.

Ok, this sort of thing is my bread and butter so lets see what crazy theory I can pull outta my butt…… hmmmm -scratches chin-

Doesnt make sense for this to be Haji’s doing to keep her distracted because assuming Jeans bottle didnt get poof’d away with her, Neil (sorry, Natalie) would still be able to summon her back and demand answers and/or a fix, AND there’s probably rules preventing Genies from fucking with another Genie’s master unless its the result of a wish from their own Master………….

………… yeah I have nothing

Well, not nothing. My only theory is that Neil has been poof’d into Natalie so many times that it might be starting to cause a personality (or a personNatalie >,,> ) split and the longer Neil stays in the Natalie form, the stronger the Natalie personality becomes. Probably not an intentional thing but rather a side affect that Jean is unaware of is happening. Just my thoughts on it though >.>

A modest proposal.
“Natalie” isn’t Neil. Too surprised & clueless. (Being listed as appearing in strip 441 proves nothing. Robert doesn’t know either.)
Nor any innocent young female djinn. They’re all locked in the palace “for their own protection”.
Who does that leave?

I suggest the pseudo-Natalie IS THE BLUE DJINN!!
Why?
However powerful, not a good move to go up against an army of near-equals.
Subtlety is called for.
Pulling off such a con oughtn’t to be too hard. Djinn aren’t noted for being rocket scientists. With their powers, why do they need brains? Superman’s hardest problem has always been figuring out whom to punch.

@Tom Sewell – the wedding was the best of those. Mxy wishes Clark Kent the best of luck, promises much mayhem in the future, and then gives him the best wedding gift of all: a free 90 days without a visit from him. Comics with him were so fun. Just like the Prankster appearances.

I’ll go further out on a limb. (If I’m wrong, this does not invalidate previous speculation.)
It accounts for the Jeanie look-alike in strip 440. The Blue Djinn had to do _something_ with Neil to pull off a masquerade.
Suppose the Blue Djinn can be recognized at close range, regardless of outward form, by his “aura of evil”.
Neil could pass any such inspection.
(Why doesn’t he speak up? Brainwashed? Amnesiac? Controlled? Just plain afraid to open his mouth amidst that crowd?)
Then, once everyone’s guard is down, the Blue Djinn swaps places and…

If I’m right, guess who Haji will pick to be #29.
Or #29 and #30 if Haji is “into” twins. See “A Funny Thing Happened on the way to the Forum”

Yes, I was thinking of putting this idea out too. Jeanie 2 and the new Natalie were best friends instead of the Jean and Neil combination being the best friends. But, the new Natalie seem to have some of Neil old memories. But, we have the same old Rodge.

(1) In the second panel, Rodge is knocking with his right hand, but in the third panel, it’s his left hand that is at least in the vicinity of Natalie’s left boob.

(2) Natalie is blushing in the third panel.

(3) While Natalie is leaning against the door, heart going thumpity-thump-thump, saying “What the Hell was that?!”, she’s touching her aforementioned left boob.

Also, I discovered a mystery. When did Neil get his door back? Way back in #65 Neil (as Natalie) found his apartment door missing. In #66, Jean told him she’d moved his tiny bachelor apartment inside his own to sort of abide by genie rules. Jean’s apartment door has been #325 ever since Jeanie Bottle #4. Or has there been a retcon? It was finally established in I Dream of Technicolor that Rouyah/Ms. Eden has lived in Apartment 310 since she returned to Cocoa Beach, and that the apartment next to her was Andy’s–the old geezer who died leaving his apartment free for Jean to move into.

I was wondering if Neil was changed to Natalie for his own protection in case the Blue Djinn came looking for Jeanie. It might open the door for some interaction between her and Rodge for the same reason.

She is looking at Rodge’s face, not where he would have poked her at with his finger. I would have thought her eyes would have gone there.

Frame 1 does seem like Rodge was going to point to Neil when the door opened upon his statement about the federal agent and completing the sentence with … (you!?). I am just not sure the finger made contact.

I can’t wait for the next week. You realize CD keeps doing this to us and is probably exhibiting an evil satisfied laugh between each episode.

Yes, but SUSPENSE is generally followed by an explanation, before building up to the next suspense moment. These last two comics could have been followed by “Dah-dah-DAH!” fanfare at the end of both of them. It’s like the episode BEFORE the season finale where they try to build EVERYONE up for cliffhangars.

Hey CD. Are you ever going to expand upon what happened in comic 138. And jeannies messing with free will. Because (assuming this IS niel) couldn’t this be looked at as a clear violation of the rules? Would this technically be direct influence over Niel/Natallie’s thoughts?

Hey, you know what? There’s a gaping loophole in the wording of that Free Will clause on the Information page (linked at the top). It says “A Genie cannot impose their will upon a mortal by force or by magical means, and will be automatically punished for trying.”

The loophole is “cannot impose their will”. What if Haji ordered Jeanie to impose HAJI’S will on Neil? That would mean that Jeanie isn’t imposing her own will onto Neil, getting around the Free Will clause. That might be what zombie-Jeanie was doing on Page 436.

Or maybe this is all just a failing on my part to word that rule properly, lol.

Robert you are technically correct. The best kind of correct! Also that’s very good and may explain a lot. If each genie was ordered to do something, they could still interpret it however they choose. God damn CD you’ve got me hooked!

Come on, “clothes shopping” scene! I’m pretty sure all of Natalie’s previous outfits were “poofed” on to her, so would she actually have some lying around? This’ll probably turn into a running from the Feds scene, never mind…sigh.

Natalie looks to me like she just woke up. Bed showing in the first panel? Remember, Jean hasn’t needed a bed for a long time. Also Rodge is banging away on the door for the first two panels, which kind of implies that he started out with taps and worked his way up when he didn’t get any response.

Expanding on my investigation of of the door number mysteries, I just noticed that in #436, the comic where Neil is sleeping in the last two panels, the number on the door Neil enters through in panel one carrying that box which does or does not carry pizza is 308. So, now it appears that Neil is in 312, Rouyah/Ms. Eden in 310, and Jean in 308. Well, I suppose Jean could have switched apartments even without magic…

To be honest, I just keep forgetting which number Jean’s apartment is. This time I used Ms Eden’s Appartment number and assumed the numbers (like street numbers) would have even on one side, Odds on the other.

I just noticed something that might be a glitch. Look how strange Rodge’s index finger looks in the second panel. It’s squared off, wider than his thumb, and drawn with thicker lines. =

I think that isn’t Rodge’s index finger. I think that that “finger” is supposed to be white. I think it’s a card that Agent Anderson gave Rodge. In fact, given that it seems to be morning and fairly early, I think Rodge may have just met with Agent Anderson and Anderson might still be in the building. And while I hope Rodge is touching Natalie in the next panel, I think what he was trying to do is give Neil that card.

You make an interesting point. his finger does look a little odd. It could be he’s gripping a card and there is a coloring bleed over making it look like the rest of his hand. He can’t be boob knocking, because he was knocking with the other hand. If he’s not gripping a card and trying to give it to her, he *may* have done a boob-poke when she opened the door in a state of confusion, trying to ascertain that this is, in fact, Natalie and not his eyes playing tricks on him…

Thanks for clearing that up. I think it was the blush that made me presume that. I guess I need to wait until next week to understand what it going on here. Or the week after if you go back to Jeannie. Whichever plot you follow up on. Dang. I want both plots followed up on equally, so I can’t win.

OK, there’s something interesting going on here. Several people are interpreting Natalie’s reactions as interest in Rodge, and as embarrassment at an inadvertent contact.

That doesn’t seem right to me. Neil, even transformed as Natalie, has never had any trouble with telling Rodge where to go, and her reactions now seem completely out of character. Particularly since CD has now confirmed, above, that there was no accidental groping happening.

I think that Natalie does not remember Rodge at all, because this is ANOTHER Natalie. That would explain the reaction in Panel 5 as being bewilderment, since she has no idea where she is or who the crazy guy at the door could be. And she’s “blushing” (already, in Panel 3) because she just rolled out of bed and probably just rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. Which is also why her hair is a mess.

And based on CD’s rejoinder to Bossrhino, above, I’d say that the Natalie transformation is NOT Jeannie’s work.

One final thought: everyone is ASSUMING that the “agent” Rodge is referring to, is “Ann” Anderson. But there are plenty of federal agents around, and that could simply be misdirection. We’ll see.

Natalie not being our Natalie was an early thought of mine, but now I don’t think that’s very likely. Rodge expected to find Neil on the other side of Neil’s door. Rodge does know that Natalie is really Neil–but there isn’t anyone else in the story that’s been shown to know that Jeanie changes Neil into Natalie. Neither Guano nor Araceli know Natalie is Neil as far as we know even though they’ve both seen Natalie. And C.D. hasn’t shown us any reason for Jean to turn Neil into Natalie this time.

Looking back to #436, the silent, eyeless figure standing over Neil in his sleep that looks like Jeanie from what we can see (pants are the same) but Neil is still Neil in the next panel when the maybe-Jeanie poofs away. I’m not the only one who’s speculated that the maybe-Jeanie in #436 isn’t our Jeanie. She could still be our Jeanie. But why would our Jeanie do that? Our Jeanie was surprised to wake up at Haji’s palace in the next comic, so it doesn’t seem like she would be taking a last look at Neil before leaving.

Taking another, closer look at the second panel in #436, the speech balloons coming out from the bottle have only one tail. This suggests to me that only one person is speaking. Magnifying, it looks to me like the balloons never contained actual text; they’re just lines suggesting speech. But that single tail still suggests only one person talking. Talking to who? Herself?

Assume that the genie in the fourth panel isn’t our Jeanie. Who is it? The Blue Djinn? Well, maybe, but how does the big BD know about Jeanie?

Araceli impersonated Jeanie before back in I Dream of my Old Bottle. She might have come in the night to take Jeanie back. And she might have taken Jeanie’s form again because she didn’t want to alarm Neil. If so, the second “Jeanie” in #439 can’t be the one in #436 because Araceli is there too. Possible–but messy. Two different impersonations of our Jeanie? And it doesn’t explain how Neil is Natalie now; Araceli wouldn’t do that even if she knew.

Now there’s one person who’s been in position all along to figure out that Neil is Natalie and who’s been in that bottle before: Ms. Eden. She’s still living right next door. Could her powers have been restored? But why would Rouyah have turned Neil into Natalie?

I’m flashing back to an episode of M*A*S*H where someone (I think it was B.J.) got a copy of a new murder mystery in the mail, and because people kept bugging him to read it themselves, began tearing off sections he’d read to pass around. Everyone in the 4077th wanted to know whodonit. But the last page turned up missing!

Continuing with that thought, this could be the alternate Jeanie look alike world that we are looking at and not the Jeanie that we know world that we are looking at. After all, Jeanie does have a double ganger here or somebody that look like her. We could be looking at her world right now. So we could still have Neil running around too.

If that the case, then this is going to be one twisted mess, before it over and everything been straightened out.

Stepping aside from the current confusing storyline, how would the rest of you respond to a future where Neil becomes Natalie and really gets together with Rodge, and maybe Jeanie with Araceli? Not any more outrageous than the romantic matchups at the end of Star Smashers of the Galaxy Rangers.

I am still holding out for Neil to end up with having Jeanie as his girlfriend. Jeanie still going to need a lot of work on her done, before that happens. Which will be the rest of this series of Jeanie of the bottle.

Hey, Tom – I think Jeannie already has the hots for Ann Anderson. And it totally makes sense – they’re both transformed males, meaning they both like women, which makes them now perfect for each other.

(1) Actually, we don’t know that. All we know is that Ann is looking for Natalie. It could well be that she just wants to get changed back to a male, and figures Natalie is her best hope for finding out how to do that.

(2) It’s a pretty good bet, but yes, it’s not a sure thing. But come on, go along with the narrative; you have to admit that an Ann-Jeannie relationship would be cute, not to mention ironic.

So, I don’t buy into the theory that this is a duplicate in some way. I think it definitely is prime Neil, since it is emphasized in the earlier scene with the “evil” Jeanie that Neil was sleeping in bed, then in the first panel here we see that bed again. Implication is obviously that it is Neil, and he hadn’t woken up yet until Rodge showed up. Also Neil looks tired and flustered both times, indicating she just awoke. Also, if it’s a clone, where’s the real Neil?

So that aside, why the reaction? That I don’t know. But it could be that Neil has never had an attraction to men as a woman before, but now she does, and doesn’t know what to do with it (wouldn’t necessarily be specific to Rodge). Alternatively, could be a memory thing as some suggest, but even then I don’t get why she’d react like that.

My favorite idea is that she was looking past Rodge and saw an indescribable horror from the vast depths of space, the mere sight of which can drive a man mad because the tiny brains of humans cannot fathom the blasphemous visage of the primordial outer gods… But this theory is very unlikely.

Also, the “thumps” in the last panel are probably just Rodge knocking on the door again.

Maybe a time traveling Jean was standing over Neil a few comics back. It is not like Jeanie would age after all. When all the Genies got teleported to the castle for their protection both present Jean and future Jeanie got transported. That is my best guess.

So far I think we have these candidates for the spare Jeanie in the palace:

(1) Rouyah’s daughter
(2) Just some person (gender optional) who was thinking of the TV show when they opened another vacant bottle
(3) The Blue Djinn in disguise
(4) Alternate universe/timeline version of Jean
(5) Rouyah herself
(6) Just another genie who by sheer co-incidence looks almost exactly like Jean and is dressed in an almost identical costume (nothing suspicious about that.)

I’m going to throw in some more nominees:

(7) Eevi who isn’t dead after all
(8) Eevi’s daughter (and guess who her dad was!)
(9) A clone/duplicate/twin of Jean; basically, making them both the real Jean.

I’d vote for either #2 or #3. Remember that someone who opens a vacant totem does NOT have to actually be thinking about genies at that particular time – rather, the shape they receive is simply whatever their idea is, of what a genie should look like. (It remains to be seen what form someone would get, who is from a genie-less culture, has never head of genies, and has no such concept.)

#2 would be interesting – Jeannie and her double could compare notes. But #3 feels more likely, given the way the plot is moving.

You mist one. That look alike Jeanie of Jeanie could be daughter. Since it a future event, it would be completely out of Jeanie’s knowledge or Jeanie of the future came back to the past ti find totem for her daughter.

Well, Genie can live thousand of years and we mortal only live about 70 years or so if we are lucky. Yes, so Jeanie Jr. could be a few years in the future or hundreds of years in the future. In which Neil would definitely be dead, cause, old age.